


Torn To Pieces for the Stupidest Reasons

by orphan_account



Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cohf never happened, M/M, Malec, Post-CoLS, Post-breakup, Post-page 511, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:51:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on a tumblr prompt by gideongraystairs, this is a Post-COLS oneshot where I re-write a Malec meetup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Torn To Pieces for the Stupidest Reasons

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "Melody Dean" by Amanda Palmer and the paragraph Alec was reading is from The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Project Runway season Magnus would have been watching is season four, with Christian Siriano as the winner that season, for your reference. I will likely add a "Part Two" to this, honestly. I like it a lot.

"Aren’t you coming?" Isabelle interrupted both her own anecdote about an incident involving Simon, his roommate and Isabelle witnessing the naked playing of video games; as well as Alec’s train of thought. Well, cloud of thought was more accurate, the way it clung and hung over him, the way it made something as simple as a conversation blur into the same grey day. 

Izzy finished lacing up her boot and straightened. The eyes that hit her brother were equal parts scrutinizing and worried as she took in the same sweater he wore yesterday, that was even large on him now than it had been in weeks. 

"I wasn’t going to," Alec shook his head. He lifted the book on his lap and read, for the third time, the same paragraph he’d been on since before Izzy had even entered the room. Even the third time, it still read quite a bit funny. The way his focus blotted in and out but he had no reason to stop the movement of his eyes, even in his blankest moments. 

_'I believe that … … man were to live out his l… ….. … ………., were to give form to every f……. ………. …o every thought, reality … …. dream—I belie… ….at the world wou… ….. …h a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget the horrors of mediaevali… … …… .. …e Hellenic Idea—to some… thing nicer, ri….. …. … Hellenic ideal, it m… … ….t the bravest among men is afraid of hims….'_

Alec had read the book before, he had read this line that would go on to speak of the forbidden desires that his sixteen year old self had craved and starved for, yet the words resonated about as much as though his copy had been given to him in cuneiform. 

Isabelle seemed unwilling to leave her brother alone, even were he truly reading. “Jace and I were both going to Taki’s, you know.” Alec’s silence remained hers to fill. “If you’re really busy, we can pick you something up.”

"No, don’t bother, I don’t need it."

"Alec, we don’t exactly have a lot of food lying around."

Alec shrugged, not feeling the motivation for food, or for getting up. “I’ll grab something.”

"Alec," Izzy’s tone had a sharp pitch to it, one of her own worry that she quickly cut away. She cleared her throat and started again, whining as she might have if Alec were to be his standard Older Brother self, to insist on something she hated. He’d last heard it when he’d told her to break up with the cheating werewolf who’d nearly given her a disease, lest he tell their mother how late she’d been sneaking out. "Please. Jace can actually go outside without burning everything, and it’s not like there’s even anything to eat."

Alec glared, hoping to cut her with silence she seemed unaffected by. It didn’t even go through her, as it might have him, but deflected off like she was something indestructible. It made Alec sick to realize how like smoke or water he was in comparison. 

"Fine," He put the book down, hoping that Basil Hallward would make sense later, that anything might make sense later, and that he wouldn’t be so exhausted if he ate. He’d eaten earlier, hadn’t he? He thought he had, but then, it had been dark last time he ate, he was fairly sure. No, no, it was morning, wasn’t it? Or was the clock downstairs broken?

Alec was, before he knew it, wearing a different shirt and walking down the Institute stairs. Stepping outside made even November seem cold, like it knifed through his face and his hands, and he felt like the next gust of wind might blow the remaining bits away with the leaves, but there he was.

Jace, at the least, seemed to be feeling much better. So much better that it almost made every pain Alec had been paying seem okay. Jace walked with enough spring again, and his face held no more fear of his own body, nor the twisting pain that was brought on by his own veins. If there was anything Alec could stop worrying for, it was that Jace would always be the agonized, screaming Jace who he’d sung the same French ballad he’d grown up with to every night, whose bedside he spent each evening at in insomniac vigil.

"I like it when the leaves turn these colors," Jace mused. "They make me look even more golden." 

Alec cracked a smile. It felt awkward on his face, but it wasn’t one of force, and it wasn’t false. “You’re a dead leaf, Jace. That’s what you’re saying.”

"You suck all the romance from it," Jace scoffed, making a gesture that Alec was certain made the tiniest spark, though he said nothing. "I am the afternoon sun and the red-gold leaves."

Alec smiled again, letting his friend’s conceit be his amusement. 

Magnus knew he was letting himself go when Raphael came to visit. He’d thought it was merely a slump, or, more truly, while more than a slump, he was giving an outward reaction as though it were any old slump. And then, somehow, there was a cherubic little face and an irritating smile on his setee while he lay on the couch with Chairman, watching Project Runway for the upteenth time. 

"What exactly do you want, Raphael?" Magnus raised an eyebrow. "As I recall it, I’m not your favorite social visit."

"You’re correct." This, Magnus noted with a twinge of regret, was a title reserved for the late Rangor Fell. "However, I do still owe you, and with what little noise you’ve been making, I had to be sure you weren’t wasting away like I feared. As it is, I think I may have been right."

Magnus rolled his eyes. “For someone so practical, you’re oddly dramatic. You know that, don’t you?” 

Raphael shrugged and let his face stay in what was not full enough to be a smirk, but not small enough for Magnus not to notice. It was somehow more infuriating than if the vampire had merely laughed at him.

Chairman, in his hand, made a little noise of protest and he realized he’d squeezed the cat a bit too hard in his irritation. “Sorry,” He murmured, stroking to earn his forgiveness. Chairman, however, leapt off the couch, and trotted away, jiggling and making sounds of protest.

"Well," Magnus said, "I haven’t died. And you’ve made me scare my cat away. Is this all?"

"No," he said. "I think not. I’ve seen you in some rather stupid states of being, you know, but this is the worst to a nearly concerning degree."

"What a huge comfort you are in my time of need," Magnus pulled the Blanket up further, as though he could make Raphael go away by covering his eyes. He didn’t know if it was a comfort to know that he wasn’t quite concerning yet, or if he was somewhat hurt that Raphael only somewhat cared.

"I don’t know that I can leave without betraying what I owe you. Clearly something has to be done or you’ll die smelling of noodles and cat fur."

"You’re here to cheer me up?" There was something almost funny about that image. Touched as he may be that Raphael, in his own Raphael way, seemed to care, he wasn’t terribly confident that it would do much to make his mood any better. He could see it now, Raphael telling him how worthless his mood was and how stupid he was being, but that it would be alright and that he held the potential to be less stupid still. Amusing? to someone else. Effective? Not exactly.

"Of course not. I’ve got to do more important things. I can, however, send over someone who will."

"You’re sending someone to make me happy?" Magnus raised an eyebrow. "Raphael, if you send me a call girl, I—"

"I wasn’t planning on it. If you have any faith in me, trust that I’m not one for lechery. Tomorrow, expect someone at your door."

"What are you on about?" Magnus asked with a sense of worry, to which Raphael only replied:

"Farewell."

The next day, Magnus was confirmed as Really Bad, when it turned out that Raphael had told on him to Catarina, who had thought the vampire’s claims legitimate enough to take a rare day off from working.

"Catarina?" He asked. "what are you doing here? Is everything alright?"

"Raphael told me," She explained.

"He likely overblew it, the little bastard," Magnus said with some level of begrudging affection. "I’m not hurt. Or sick."

"I don’t quite believe either of those." She answered. "But I think getting you out to lunch might be good."

Magnus obliged, not wanting to waste Catarina’s day off, and off he went to the little Downworld place with her, while she insisted on paying for both their meals.

Alec, by the time he had ordered coffee and a meal at Taki’s, actually felt like he could laugh without his face hurting, and that the cloud might have for now, dulled to a fog.

And he seemed to be able to enjoy the day as effortlessly as he might have a year ago, which was still not great, but better than he’d been since he’d been single again.

And it struck him as odd when he saw his sister tense up, and his parabatai follow her gaze and swear.

"What’s—?" Alec began to ask but cut off when he, too, saw the latest pair to come in the door. There, dressed more drably than he recalled, but still more stunning that Alec thought possible, was the High warlock of Brooklyn himself.

"I have to go." Alec got up from the booth and, trying to be as covert as he could, went bolting for the door, turning and ducking away as he passed the table containing two neatly seated warlocks.

He may have been successful had he not crashed into a server while he turned, spilling a drink all over himself and then spilling himself right onto the table, where he looked up into two shocked face, one of them blue, and one of them golden.

"Um." Alec swallowed. Words, what were words, what were words?

"Alexander," Magnus breathed, his voice as soft as it had been when Alec was against his chest and it was raining outside and they wouldn’t move for hours. Alec felt like it was hours before he could talk again.

"Hi." The word was staccato, an awkward utterance from his dry throat. "I’m, er, sorry."

Catarina still sat, pale and unmoving, like if he she moved even slightly, they would blow up. Like she were sitting on a land mine, or near a wild animal.

"It’s," Magnus cleared his throat, pulled his jacket close, "It’s fine." While his face was wan and pale and tired as Alec felt, he smiled, mostly at the eyes, while the rest of him remained a ghost. "Though falling and spilling things seems to be a habit of yours." 

Alec blushed, forcing himself to stand, though his scalding and wet shirt made it hurt. “Yeah.” He said, and then again when he could contain it no longer. “We need to talk. Sometime not now. For real. I have some things I need to say to you, and I don’t want to keep avoiding you, and I’m sorry, and I really don’t know what I’m doing And I… I need to get out of this shirt.”

Magnus stood frozen for a moment, before, as though something moved him with a string, he nodded. “We can.” He said. “Tomorrow. Back here, maybe. Eight?” 

"Eight." Alec felt his heart set off fireworks that made his whole body hotter than the coffee on his shirt. "Eight." He nodded. "I’ll be here."

"I know you will," said Magnus, smiling softly.


End file.
